Cross Position Tiers and Draft Ranges

(1) tiers across all positions, and
(2) what an appropriate range to draft a certain player is (i.e. Aaron Rodgers)

I've provided full commentary for standard leagues, but you can scroll down to find tier lists and charts for 1-point PPR and 0.5-point PPR formats.

For generating (1), I fit a gaussian mixture model over the average rankings of expert rankings rankings provided by fantasypros. In other words, I'm using a machine learning algorithm to discover natural tiers of players based on a vote of experts.

For generating (2), I provide a set of charts below that can give you a quick way of seeing if at least 70% of experts would agree with you on your pick. The grey bars are half standard deviations of the rankings. In english, that means the bottom and top of these bars represent the 30% and 70% percentiles of the expert rankings (30.9% and 69.1% to be exact).

(protip: left click image, then right click > open image in new tab to see full size)

Here is an example of how you can read this figure. Roughly 70% of experts would take Forte/Jackson over Rodgers (or if you prefer, 30% of experts think Rodgers is a better value pick than Forte/Jackson), so I will call 16th overall roughly the top end of his range. I'm hedging my claim by calling it "roughly", since these charts are meant provide quick approximations.

So how late could you pick Rodgers or Brees? The bottom end of their range is Maurice Jones-Drew, or 25th overall. To be precise, this means 70% of experts think they should be drafted before Roddy White, or should be delayed until after the 25th overall pick. For the rest of this article, let's use this as our definition of draft-able range.

Fitzgerald and MJD don't quite make tier 2, understandably, as their fantasy production levels are still a question mark (Fitz with a new QB, and MJD who can't seem to stay healthy). Fitzgerald is the safer pick between the two, which you can see since his variance is much lower.

So about the appropriate range for picking up Peyton and Cam? The answer is anywhere from before Roddy White down to McFadden (26th overall to 35th overall). Above or below this range you'll find 70% of experts disagreeing with you.

Gronkowski is an interesting one because of his high variance. Experts think he can fall anywhere between Colston, who is 36 overall, and Steve Smith, who is 59 overall. This is something you can't really see from looking at a plain ranking chart, or even several position tier lists. Generally, a high variance player means high risk and high reward, which is certainly the case with Gronk.

Going back to QB's, since taking them late is such a hot topic this year, the range for Brady and Ryan is anywhere between 37 overall and 54 overall.

Reiterating on a point I made in earlier post, you can see the large drop off in value after Romo, even across all positions. His drafting range is between 65th overall and 75th overall, between Davis and Vareen.

Notice two things about tight ends. First, they have larger variance, meaning the acceptable range of drafting them is larger. Second, they tend to be at the edge or in between tiers (see Witten, Davis, Rudolph, Daniels). This means you're justified in drafting them on the lower or upper tier they sit between, depending on your positional needs. Here are the draft-able ranges for some of the later TE's: